This invention relates to a geographically sensitive system for noticing lost children and physically or mentally impaired persons by use of a global computer network.
The loss of one""s personal property, whether by chance or as the result of theft, is often devastating. When the lost item is a living being, for example a child or loved one or pet, the loss is catastrophic. While the loss of a child or adult brings together numerous governmental agencies, e.g. police departments, the FBI, fire departments, etc., there is no instant means to coordinate and disseminate information.
The statistics pertaining missing children, alone, state that there are 2300 children reported missing every day in the United States. This amounts to approximately 839,500 missing children per year.
As the human population both expands and ages, the number of incidents of missing people increases each year. Every day there are reported stories of Alzheimer afflicted adults wandering away from home or becoming lost. Children and mentally impaired individuals are the objects of searches quite regularly. Because of the ability to communicate and higher intensity of the search, in most instances, the recovery of missing persons has a greater success rate than for pets. However, the anxiety level of the responsible adults during the ordeal of a missing person search can produce psychological scars.
The recovery rate is not so high in the incidence of abduction and runaways where the cooperation of the subject is either prevented or not volunteered.
Thus, what is needed is a system that can assist the guardian or parent in the search for a missing person or child.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,219, incorporated herein by reference, describes a system facilitating the identification of found children so that the guardian or parent may be notified. The identification uses a code or tag carried by the child preventing the child""s name from becoming known to the public.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,116 is drawn to a method for locating a lost pet, person or object. The method describes use of an identification number contained on a card held by the owner and on a tag attached to the item.
The prior art suffers from an inability to distribute an alert regarding the lost child or impaired person 1) in a timely fashion, and 2) to an appropriate geographical area, to maximize the probability of recovery.
Therefore, if a method for finding a lost child or impaired person could be devised which would alert the appropriate personnel that a particular person was missing in their location, at that instant in time, a long-felt need in the art would be satisfied.
The present inventor has developed a system which utilizes the technological power provided by the global computer network (xe2x80x9cInternetxe2x80x9d) to provide an intelligent and powerful missing person notification system for canvassing specific geographical areas in a matter of seconds. By use of an on-line interview and active web site engine, a photo e-mail of the missing person can be distributed instantaneously to reach a large segment of the community, including doctors, neighborhood watch societies, police agencies, TV, radio stations, churches, synagogues, and any volunteer groups, such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, who will help parents and guardians search for missing children or persons in a time of emergency. The notification system has the capability of retaining information about the child or impaired person and their parents or guardian, including photographs. Present technology makes it possible to scale a single system to handle all minors and impaired persons in the United States. Upon notification of that such a person is missing, the system will instantly calculate the geographical location within which the that person is most likely to be present. Using the person""s home zip code, the system will initiate calculations, based upon the particular age and ability of the person and an estimate of how long he/she has been missing, to determine the most appropriate target area for the search.
Utilizing high speed distribution of lost photo e-mails, at speeds of about 30,000 per minute; and high speed distribution of emergency phone calls, at speeds of about 10,000 per 15 minutes; the system will utilize the enormous popularity and communicating power of the Global computer network to activate a proactive on-line technology. The system will instantly canvass large geographic areas in seconds, distributing vital information to strategically positioned members of the local community in order to reunite the missing person and his/her parents or guardian. Up to 400 simultaneous requests for registration or emergency searches can be handled by the system. Thousands of caring people will be alerted within minutes of notification that a child or impaired person is lost, enabling the community to come together quickly and galvanize their efforts to locate the lost person.
The present inventor contemplates the use of the system for finding missing persons, both child and adult.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the instant invention to teach a system which utilizes the global computer network to initiate a notification process to help in locating a lost child or impaired person.
It is a further objective of the instant invention to provide a method of operating an interview and active web site engine via the global computer network, which provides speed, scalability, reliability and security.
It is yet another objective of the instant invention to teach a notification system which provides for registration of the child or impaired person online via inclusion of scanned photographs.
It is a still further objective of the invention teach a system which determines an optimum exposure area for distribution of information regarding the lost person based upon input of critical data regarding age and abilities, time lost and last known location.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention. The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.